What is practically impossible to find is information about public calls to tender, made by the Venezuelan government, "won" by Odebrecht (note how even U.S. diplomats in Caracas use quotation marks in cables describing contracting of Odebrecht in Venezuela). Contracts appear to have been granted "a dedo", meaning Hugo Chavez deciding after a little chat with Lula, or Dilma, to grant billions of dollars worth of contracts to the Brazilian giant. In the absence of open bids for such contracts in Venezuela, just how can Odebrecht explain its "success" in our country? The answer lies in Odebrecht's contributions to Lula's Workers Party:

each real donated to campaigns of worker party lawmakers yielded 14 to 39 reais worth of contracts in less than three years... Campaign donations from five Odebrecht units grew to 37.9 million reais in 2012, from 8.1 million in 2002, according to the electoral tribunal. Odebrecht’s building unit gave 6 million reais to the worker’s party in 2013, as incumbent Rousseff, a former guerrilla who was tortured by the military regime, seeks re-election.